USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > A history of the Catholic church in the dioceses of Pittsburg and Allegheny from its establishment to the present time > Part 25
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* Letter to a Protestant Friend, etc., p. 19.
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GALLITZIN'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE.
stantly frowned down by his indignant father and passed over by his mother as the caprice or enthusiasm of an inconstant boy whose resolves were traced in sand." *
Of his personal appearance when he obtained his majority the same authoress remarks: " Mitri was the very beau ideal of a stately young officer ; he was rather tall, being about five feet and nine or ten inches high, with the peculiar reticent, dignified, high-bred air which has the effect of the most im- posing height ; he had a slender and lithe yet compact figure, a fine clear complexion, not too fair for manliness, and the handsomest dark eyes that ever glanced love or anger from the shadow of a military cap-eyes fathomless in their tender- ness, flashing fire at the slightest contradiction, full of mischief and merriment the instant anything amusing crossed their outer or inner vision ; masses of shining black hair clustered around a delicately formed, haughtily set head, while a long large nose, very prominent and slightly aquiline, gave that character, force, and dignity to his countenance which seldom if ever accompany features of perfect regularity."+ Towards the close of his life there was remarkable resemblance between his countenance and that of Peter the Great of Russia, as may be seen by any one who is curious enough to compare the two pictures.
The education of a young man in his position could not be regarded as finished until he had seen other lands; and it was the wish of his parents to have him make a tour of the coun- tries of Europe. But the unsettled state of nearly the whole continent at that time forced them reluctantly to turn their thoughts elsewhere. America, which was then basking in the sunshine of its newly acquired independence, and under the administration of the illustrious Washington was making such rapid strides in material progress as to excite the jealousy of old Europe, naturally arrested their attention and determined them to send Mitri-as the Prince was familiarly called-to that country. After much consultation and reflection, Rev. Felix Brosius was selected as his guardian. The princess procured letters of introduction from the Prince-Bishops of .
* Life, etc., pp. 54, 55.
t Ibid., P. 58.
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HE SAILS FOR AMERICA.
Hildesheim and Paderborn to Bishop Carroll, of Baltimore, to whose care she wished to confide her son. To avoid the expense and inconvenience of rank, he took the name of Au- gustine Schmet, from his mother's family name of Schmettau, which was afterwards Americanized to Smith, the name which he bore after his ordination and of which more re- mains to be said hereafter. But the last days he spent in the Old World were little in harmony with the part he was destined so soon to play in the New. Says Miss Brown- son :
" He had said good-by to Münster August 8th (1792), but not to his mother so soon, as she with some friends was to accompany him to Rotterdam and see him on board the ship. Every one did his utmost to make the last days pleasant, and it was said that the young prince told afterwards that the night before sailing, or else the night before leaving Münster, report is not clear which, he attended a grand ball given for him, at which he danced from dark to daylight ; for Mitri was young and enjoyed the luxuries of wealth and the pleasures of life with a light heart and to the utmost. But when the hour came to say his last good-by he was completely dis- couraged, and had no heart for the work. . . All at once
the whole journey looked very unnecessary to him ; . . even at that moment, though his baggage and attendants were on board, though they saw as they walked along the pier that the boat sent to take him to the ship was coming near, he would gladly have turned back and given it all up; with the simplicity of his character he made no concealment of his dread and fear, eagerly begging his mother, whose grief in- creased as the moments passed, restrained and controlled as it was, showed her more yielding, more tender than he had ever seen her, to let him stay, and as she, who had always led him, now clung silently to him, her eyes soft with unshed tears, he looked at her and impulsively declared he could not go, he would die away from home, he was afraid of the ocean dashing up at his feet, afraid of the strange people beyond. 'Mitri, Mitri!' exclaimed his mother, shocked into sudden action, and turning instantly with flashing eyes upon him, 'Mitri! I am ashamed of you !' He was between her and the
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HIS ARRIVAL AT BALTIMORE.
water, on the very edge of the pier, and her sudden and un- expected movement, at a time when he was absorbed in his own entreaties, caused him to lose his balance and fall over. But the boat sent out for him was close at hand and he was an excellent swimmer, so he was quickly rescued, and with one last look at his mother standing on the pier, he was swiftly rowed to the ship. He sailed from Rotterdam August 18th."
The seemingly unaccountable reluctance with which he left the Old World may have been in part a temptation such as those with which Satan frequently assails persons whom he is permitted to foresee will be instruments in the hands of God for wresting a portion of his kingdom from him. Be that as it may, he arrived at Baltimore October 28th, in com- pany with several priests for the American mission, and soon after waited on Bishop Carroll. In the urgent demand for missionaries it could not be expected that Father Brosius could accompany the young prince in his travels, nor that the latter would be content to follow the missionary in his. But young Gallitzin soon began to compare the tranquil state of the youthful republic with the turmoil of the Old World, and insensibly felt his heart becoming attached to it, at the same time that the religious atmosphere in which he lived for the present elevated his thoughts and desires to holier aims than those to which his noble birth would naturally have led him to aspire. He began ere long to hear within him the whisperings of a vocation to the ecclesiastical state. In this unexpected turn of affairs the Bishop thought it best to per- mit him to remain for a time at the Seminary of the Sulpi- cians in Baltimore, that he might have leisure for serious re- flection on the nature of the new state of life to which he felt himself called. " While the Bishop with Mr. Nagot (Superior of the seminary) maturely considered the application he had made to enter the service of the Church, and knowing well the charges given to the young man by his father, the Bishop desired him at the same time to apply himself carefully to the study of the constitution, laws, manners, and geography of the country, and to assist him in doing so took him with him
* Life, etc., pp. 64, 65.
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HE RESOLVES TO ENTER THE PRIESTHOOD,
in visiting different parts of his diocese, taking him into the home circle of the most distinguished American families. In the book of the Sulpician Seminary at Baltimore it is recorded that the frank and honest manners of the young Prince Gallit- zin and his excellent education gave Bishop Carroll the liveliest pleasure during his journey, but he was astonished to find that he travelled only with reluctance, and that nothing could make him forget his beloved seminary-a most precious dis- position which the prelate considered a certain sign of his vocation to the ecclesiastical state, as was indeed the opinion of all who knew him. In truth it was soon apparent that Mitri had 'no other ambition than to acquire the science of the saints, and every day to die to himself and the world.'" *
The Bishop informed the princess of the course he had thought best to pursue, and at the same time paid a high tribute to the amiable qualities of her son. As to the prince, his mind was fully made up, and, with that tenacity of pur- pose and strength of character which marked his subsequent career, he applied himself with loving obedience to the course which Heaven had marked out for him. Upon hearing later of the choice he had made, his mother was disappointed and disposed to find fault with the Bishop, thinking that he and others had exercised an undue influence over his youthful mind; but the spirit soon triumphed over the flesh and caused her to acquiesce in the designs of Providence. His father, however, was planning for his promotion in the army and had already obtained a commission for him. His proud spirit could ill brook the thought that his only son, the heir to his titles and estates, should conceal himself in the wilds of America and devote his talents and his life to the service of the poor. He hastened to inform him that his elevation to the priesthood would of itself, according to the laws of Russia, render him incapable of inheriting the estates to which his birth had given him a claim. But I cannot dwell further upon the trials to which the young hero was exposed, nor en- large upon the influence that was in vain brought to bear upon him. He heard the divine call, and, with St. Peter, he
.
* Life, etc., pp. 73, 74.
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HE IS ORDAINED A PRIEST.
thought it better to obey God than man. The thorough edu- cation he had received enabled the Bishop to permit him to enter upon the study of theology after he had devoted a little time to American geography, history, and government, and so rapid was his progress that he received minor or- ders soon, and on November 14th, 1794, was ordained sub- deacon. " At the commencement of January" (1795), says his little French note-book, " God gave me the desire to unite myself to the Society of the Sulpicians. Communicating this to Mr. Nagot, he advised me to refer it to our Lord ; this de- sire continues as if it were already accomplished." He was admitted a member on the 13th of February of the same year, but he afterwards withdrew, although not for many years, as we shall see, a step which he could take from the fact that the members are bound by no religious vow. On the 18th of March, 1795, he was raised to the sacred dignity of the priesthood, being the second priest ordained in the United States and the first which this country can claim as wholly her own. For although Rev. Stephen Badin was the first or- dained a priest, yet he was a deacon before leaving his native France. But Rev. D. A. Gallitzin, or Rev. Augustine Smith, as he was then called, passed through all the successive steps, from the clerical tonsure, on American soil. With a view of recruiting his health, impaired by his assiduous application to study, he was sent to the mission at Port Tobacco. But finding that he was not improving, the Bishop wished to send him to the extensive mission of which Conewago was the centre and at which his friend, Father Brosius, then was. But he urged such reasons against it as drew from the Bishop a letter of paternal rebuke and an order to repair without delay to Bal- timore. Here he was placed in charge of the German Catho- lics of the city, and it was while ministering to them that he received the call to go to the theatre of his future labors, as we have already seen. Returning to Baltimore, he remained until some time in the year 1796, when he entered upon the Conewago mission. He visited a number of places in Mary- land and Pennsylvania, and resided, for at least a part of the time, at Taneytown. It was at this time that the extraordinary affair of the Livingston family occurred, near Martinsburg,
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HE ENTERS ON THE MISSION.
Va., in which he played an important part, and for an account of which the reader is referred to Miss Brownson's Life (pp. 100-107) .*
But the young priest's zeal was not always according to prudence; he saw abuses and was too hasty in attempting to correct them, and complaints of his arbitary measures were made to the Bishop. The latter, under date of October 20th, 1798, wrote him a letter admonishing him in paternal yet for- cible terms not to be too anxious to correct all abuses at once, nor too desirous of imposing his views upon others. No one would for a moment venture to question his zeal and his de- sire of spending himself and being spent for the good of his people-his entire life is a striking evidence of both-but it is equally unquestionable that he inherited and to his dying day retained no little of that sense of superiority inherent in the nobility of the Old World; and with it he possessed a will the dictates of which no one was permitted to resist, dictates which his commanding figure, fiery eye, and thrilling voice aided him no little in carrying into execution. To the day of his death he could not brook opposition. The terms of the Bishop's letter are so applicable to his character during his whole life that one or two extracts from it are presented to the reader, and the more so as that prelate was fully capable of reading his character. Says the Bishop : "I have already often admonished you, and others in whom you have perhaps placed more confidence have urged you, to try more to win the affections of your congregations, to lead them by mildness, even here and there to overlook some things which are not precisely as they should be, that afterwards you may correct them by gentle persuasion, instead of at once making use of your authority, and carrying that authority to its utmost limits. . . . And then, what a doctrine it is that all who are under your charge should be bound also to yield to every opinion you may have, to every proposal you make, without being permitted a question." +
* The affair has recently been treated at length in a small work entitled "The Wizard Clip," by the late Rev. J. M. Finoti.
t Leben und Wirken des Prinzen Demetrius Augustin Gallitzin, von P. Hein- rich Lemcke, p. 147.
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DR. GALLITZIN AT LORETTO.
At length the Catholics of M'Guire's settlement presented a petition to the Bishop asking him to send them a priest who should be permanently stationed among them, and stated as an inducement that the land given by the Captain to the church would, when cultivated, serve for the priest's subsist- . ence. Dr. Gallitzin, through whom the petition was presented, united with them, and the Bishop granted it in a letter to him dated from Washington City, March Ist, 1799. Dr. Gallitzin reached his mission in the latter part of the summer following, but the precise date has not been transmitted to us. He found about a dozen families in the settlement, which, with a few persons who had come up with him, or about the same time, from Maryland and Conewago, formed his parish. But we have seen that the field of his missionary labors for many years embraced a large tract of territory with its scattered families east of the mountains. "He commenced by putting things in order, thankful enough that as yet the field was un- ploughed, consequently free from the tares which had so choked up the wheat and tortured him in the older and more important stations he had attended. He at once divided his own land, which had cost about four dollars an acre, into lots which he sold for a mere trifle on long credit, credit so long that much of it still lasts, and he held out the same inducements for all who, unable to procure the first means for subsistence, would wish to join him, providing always that they were hon- est, industrious, or desirous of becoming so; he wanted no wolves in sheep's clothing in his fold."* His people were all poor, and the country in which they lived was still infested with bears, woives, and Indians. The winter, too, on the mountain is unusually long and severe, so that it required strength of both body and mind to lay the foundation of a colony there. But the priest's presence inspired new life into the settlement. The state of his farm and the erection of his church and house are thus graphically described by his enthu- siastic biographer :
"When he arrived he found that Captain M'Guire had very thoughtfully given a few animals as stock for the farm to
* Life, etc., p. 118.
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HE BUILDS A CHURCH.
be prepared for the use of the priest who should live on the church property, and had placed a man in charge of it and them, hoping thus to have a portion cleared and made some- what productive while awaiting its reverend occupant. Father Gallitzin gave some of these to the tenant whom he displaced to live in the houses of the settlers until his own log cabin could be built. This was put up on the slope of the hill, on the church land, which was about two miles from the chief M'Guire farm and was made of round logs. .
. . With uncontrollable eagerness he watched the progress of the log church, which fast took size and shape under the strong and willing arms of his parishioners, his own inspirations and gen- erosity. As soon as the harvest was gathered he gave em- ployment to them all upon the church, and even had the women employed in making a great number of candles for it, and on Christmas eve of that year it was finished, placed under the protection of St. Michael, and ready for midnight Mass, the only house of God from Lancaster to St. Louis. . . He had instructed the men to bring in branches of the beautiful evergreen trees, which grew thick . upon the mountains and at their very doors; the women set their can- dles amongst the dark green foliage covering the rude walls; and just at midnight, when the people who had gathered from immense distances through the wilderness of snow were hushed in rapt expectation, he came out upon the altar, with all the ceremony of the grandest Cathedral, and intoned the Mass." *
Writing to the Bishop under date of February 9th, 1800, he says: "Our church, which was only begun in harvest, got finished for service the night before Christmas; it is about 44 feet long by 25, built of white pine logs, with a very good shingle roof. I kept service in it at Christmas for the first time, to the very great satisfaction of the whole congregation, who seemed very much moved at a sight which they never beheld before. There is also a house built for me, 16 feet by 14, besides a little kitchen and a stable. I have now, thanks be to God, a little home of my own, for the first time since I
* Life, etc., pp. 119, 120.
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. THE FIRST MASS.
came to this country, and God grant that I may be able to keep it. The prospect of forming a lasting establishment for promoting the cause of religion is very great; the country is amazing fertile, almost entirely inhabited by Roman Catho- lics, and so advantageously situated with regard to market that there is no doubt but it will be a place of refuge for a great many Catholics; a great many have bought property there in the course of these three months past, and a great many more are expected. The congregation consists at pres- ent of about forty families, but there is no end to the Catho- lics in all the settlements round about me; what will become of them all, if we do not soon receive a new supply of priests, I do not know. I try as much as I can to persuade them to settle around me."
In this extract we perceive the enthusiasm with which he burned to found a Catholic colony, and the little account he made of the many and great obstacles which stood in his way. The statement of his biographer that his was the only church from Lancaster to St. Louis is true as far at least as relates to this State; for although a church was commenced at Greens- burg in the spring of 1790, it was never finished,* as we shall see in its proper place. That his midnight Mass was the first celebrated west of the Allegheny Mountains, as is represented by some writers, is undoubtedly incorrect; for other priests had visited the mountains, as we have seen, before Dr. Gallit- zin came; and besides, would he abstain from celebrating Mass during the time in which the church was being built? The first Mass celebrated west of the mountains, with the ex- ception of those at Fort Duquesne, was most probably by Rev. John B. Causey, in the house of John Propst, ten miles west of Greensburg, in June, 1789, of which more hereafter. t
Dr. Gallitzin continued to invite settlers to his colony and to supply them with homes on easy terms, waiting until such time as they would be able to pay for them. Rev. J. A. Stil- lenger, a few years before his death, showed me a large roll of papers referring to these lands, and stated that Dr. Gallitzin
* St. Vincenz in Pennsylvanien, p. 54. t Ibid., pp. 49, 50.
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DR. GALLITZIN'S ESTATE.
had bought more than twenty thousand acres of land for the settlers. This, although a high figure, is the statement of one who was next neighbor to the venerable priest for ten years, and was intimately acquainted with the history of the settle- ment. These mountain lands were owned by wealthy persons in the eastern cities, who had bought them low with a view of speculating, and who were willing to sell on time provided they had proper security. Although a princely estate would seem to be sufficient, the poor priest was often forced to claim the indulgence of his creditors. We shall see that in his ex- pectation of realizing from his inherited estate he was doomed to cruel disappointment. He was naturalized and became a citizen of the United States in 1802. In May 6th, 1803, his father died suddenly at Brunswick, in Saxony, and it was thought advisable for him to cross to Europe to look after the estate. But he preferred to remain with his people. "Im- mediately upon the prince's death, his relatives in Russia took possession of his estates as his heirs, considering Mitri as thrown out altogether on account of his profession, as the prince had always expected; the Princess Mimi was by the laws of Russia only entitled to one fourteenth of the real estate and to one eighth of the personal property. By the advice of his mother, Father Gallitzin appointed Baron von Fuerstenberg, Count Frederic Leopold von Stolberg, and Count Clement Augustus von Merveldt, his agents, with full power of attorney to bring a suit against his relatives who claimed the estates, while the princess took every possible step to secure the property for him, or, if that could not be, for herself, through her marriage contract, which resulted in an expensive litigation, of which Father Gallitzin from time to time received some reports." *
His estates, as valued by these three noblemen, consisted, as Father Heyden tells us : " Ist. Of seventy thousand rubles in money ; and 2d. In real property the village of Lankoff, in the government of Wadalmir, and the villages of Fabanzin and Mikulskin, in the government of Kostrom, with all the
* Life, etc., pp, 157, 158.
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HE BUILDS A MILL.
lands, mills, and other property thereto belonging, with one thousand two hundred and sixty male subjects." *
But the settlement of these claims required time, and how- ever sanguine the good man may have been of success, his mind became a prey to apprehensions which the impatience of some of his creditors was too well calculated to keep vivid- ly before him. But we must not forget that he was a mis- sionary in the wilds, and, although the temporalities of his colony claimed a great part of his time and attention, the care of the souls of his people received still more. From his mountain home there was no priest in the west nearer than Sportsman's Hall, nor in the east nearer than Conewago, while to the north and south there was none in the State, nor for a great distance beyond its boundaries. Nor was his posi- tion similar to that of the other missionaries. The whole settlement was in a measure the work of his hands; to him it owed not merely its spiritual but also its temporal existence ; and he was both its prince and priest.
Some years after the erection of his humble residence, described above, he built a larger one of hewn logs adjoining it. He also put up a mill worked by two horses to grind the grain of the settlers; but as it was found to be too expensive, it was afterwards replaced by one run by water. And the visitor to Loretto, as he enters the town from the east, may see the remains of the old mill in the shape of a broken wheel or two in a field near the brook. While teaching at St. Francis' College, in the village, in the fall of 1869, I visited the old mill, then entirely fallen to ruins; but at present nothing of the building remains. A part of his own land he laid out into a village in the year 1803, and named it Loretto, out of his devotion to the august Mother of God. At the time of his death, 1840, it contained but 150 souls ; and in 1870 the popu- lation had increased to only 280. It is situated about four and a half miles northwest of Cresson Station on the Pennsylvania Railroad, which is one hundred and two miles by the road from Pittsburg; but by an air line the village is but seventy-
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